Roads threaten Indonesia’s last Tiger territory

  • Sumatra’s Kerinci Seblat National Park is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (TRHS), which has been inscribed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger since 2011.
  • UNESCO has noted particular concern about a spate of road projects planned for Kerinci Seblat and other protected areas within the TRHS.
  • According to park officials, Indonesia’s forestry ministry has refused permits for all new roads within the park; the sole project to receive permission is the upgrade of an existing road.
  • The park still faces immense pressure from encroachment for agriculture, logging, mining and poaching.

The rainforests that once carpeted Indonesia’s Sumatra Island are among the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, home to iconic species like the Sumatran tiger, rhino and orangutan. They are also among the most imperiled; in just two decades, between 1990 and 2010, Sumatra lost 40 percent of its old-growth forest. The tigers, rhinos and orangutans that roamed those forests are now critically endangered.

Much of the intact forest that remains is protected, at least nominally, in a series of National Parks, and, since 2004, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (TRHS).

In recent years, concern has grown that Indonesian authorities are not doing enough to protect this critical biodiversity hotspot. Since 2011, the site has been inscribed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage In Danger due to the risks of logging, encroachment, road expansion and poaching.

In 2016, UNESCO flagged up concerns about road construction in the area, particularly in Kerinci Seblat National Park, a protected area extending for 350 kilometers (217 miles) from northwest to southeast along the rugged spine of the Bukit Barisan Mountains.

In the years since, it’s been some good news and some bad news for Kerinci Seblat National Park.

Canceled Roads

In 2016, UNESCO identified 12 planned or proposed road projects in four zones of the park. Now, park officials say, the list of road expansion projects of concern has been whittled down to five. And of those, four are cancelled. The only project currently set to go forward is the improvement of an existing road, which runs from Sandaran Agung mountain across to Tapan near the West coast.

According to Hadinata Karyadi, a spokesman for Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sungai Penuh, the town encircled by the park, the local office of the forestry ministry had formally recommended to the minister that the four now-cancelled projects be denied approval. For example, Karyadi says his office urged the ministry to refuse approval for a proposed road through the village of Lempur because it threatened critical tiger habitat. Those rejections were duly issued over a two-year period, with the last project being denied a permit in 2018.

The road-improvement project that was approved presents fewer environmental concerns, Karyadi says, because it involves upgrading an already existing road rather than building a new one. The current road is steep, winding and currently in such bad condition that even public minibuses will not use it, Karyadi says. Once improved, though, he says the road will be sufficient to serve as an evacuation route in case of natural disasters — one of the frequent justifications for proposing new road projects in the park. “Improving the existing road is better than building a new one,” he says. “If it is good, it will be enough for evacuation needs for now.”

Some concerns do remain, because any increase in traffic on a road through the park could affect the local wildlife. In late 2018, Fauna & Flora International (FFI), an NGO working closely with the national park management, planned an “intensive biodiversity survey” to “assess impacts of upgrading a road running through the national park and make recommendations to government.”

For now, the most hazardous road proposals seem to be off the table, though FFI notes that “local political elites” continue to push for the revival of the cancelled projects. But the park and its ecosystems remain under serious threat due to population growth, agriculture and industry.

“Encroachment on the national park is the main problem,” Karyadi says. He adds that the current staff of around 70 rangers isn’t enough to police the huge perimeter and that his office has requested a larger budget.

A rejected road

One of the most controversial projects was the proposed new road in the south of the park, through Lempur. At present a trail runs from Lempur, through the village rice fields and continues as a wide rocky walking trail that winds through the forest. According to locals, it’s been there ever since anyone can remember. These days it’s used mainly to get to local tourist sites such as Kaco Lake and for trekking to the national park.

“My team made a full report and gave it to the ranger,” says trekking guide Andi Tiasanoawa in Lempur, explaining his response to the road proposal. “We don’t want people cutting the trees,” he says, adding that he makes his living from the forest and doesn’t want it damaged.

Guide Zacky Zaid, who has been trekking these hills regularly for 10 years, says a past road project in the area made people aware of the potential downsides such developments can bring. Zaid says that around five years ago the government agreed to build an access road to the village of Renah Kemumu inside the park boundary. “This route was one of the popular five-day treks that we did,” Zaid says. But once the road was built, the wildlife that the tourists came to see dwindled. “Lots of people cut the trees when the government built the road,” he says. “The nature is not really good anymore. There are no big trees anymore. For us I’m so sad. We closed trip there a couple of years ago.”

Ultimately, the Lempur road was rejected “because it threatened the tiger core area,” Karyadi says.

Fertile farming

At 3,805 meters (12,483 feet) above sea level, Mount Kerinci is the tallest volcano in Indonesia, and dominates the landscape here. The alluvial sediment deposited by past eruptions provides the valley with mineral-rich soil that draws farmers. Steep hills that ring the valley create the boundary to the national park beyond. Migration into the valley has led to pressure on the park as farmers encroach on the hills.

A huge 10,000-hectare (24,700-acre) tea plantation stretches across the valley floor; in between, farmer’s plots host a variety of everything from potatoes to tomatoes and coffee.

As the elevation rises and the valley floor gives way to the steep mountain slopes, the crops change to cinnamon, rubber, coffee and cloves. These tree crops give the slopes a forested appearance, but close up the hills are cultivated and densely populated with farming communities.

“The cinnamon boom is a particular problem” driving encroachment, says Karyadi. Others see it as a benign and sustainable traditional practice that also has economic benefits for poor farmers.

In the farming village of Talang Kemulun at the foot of the hills that form the valley’s southern perimeter, Eibru Hajar says he mainly grows cinnamon and coffee on his own land. “I have around a hundred cinnamon trees and cut them in a rotation cycle of 15 years,” he says. “I get around 50 kilos [110 pounds] per tree.

“The rangers come by every couple of months,” Hajar adds. “So I’m afraid of cutting the trees [inside the park boundary]. The penalty for cutting forest trees is a big fine and if you don’t have money you get several months in prison.”

But the threat of penalties doesn’t deter everybody, and NGOs like FFI report that land continues to be cleared within the borders of the park.

Illegal mining is another threat. In a 2018 report, FFI said it found alluvial gold mining sites in and around the park’s borders, “posing serious threat to a key tiger corridor with a dirt road constructed which entered the edge of the national park.” Despite the central government’s commitment to protecting the park, local political pressure on the park remains high. In 2017, it spilled into open conflict when gold miners held a municipal government official hostage, according to FFI.

FFI also tracks illegal logging and poaching of pangolins, tigers and other wildlife. It notes that law enforcement efforts since 2016 did seem to have an impact on reducing the poaching, but that these efforts remain a challenge.

With agribusiness and extractive industries hungry for new land, the pressure on Sumatra’s forests is relentless. Kerinci Seblat is no exception, and migrant farmers have swelled the local population, placing further pressure on the national park.

Last year the park management set up a Role Model Program, to try and stem escalating encroachment, especially by migrant farmers who frequently claim that the park’s boundaries are unclear.

“The park boundary is well demarcated with concrete markers about one meter [3 feet] tall,” Karyadi says. “In some places locals have dug up the marker posts.”

The scheme aims to restore encroached forest and establish alternative livelihoods. Along the way are manifold obstacles, not least gaining the participation and cooperation of sometimes reluctant farmers.

“This week we caught some illegal loggers and handed them to the police. They will be judged by the law,” Karyadi says. His office is trying to navigate a tricky path between encouraging farmers to change their practices through incentives (some get financial rewards under the Role Model scheme), and punishing offenders who have clearly broken national park rules.

For now, encroachment by farmers is ongoing, but local political attempts to accelerate this by opening up new areas through road-building have been limited. Meanwhile, political tensions remain between politicians seeking more infrastructure building and the forestry ministry, which works with the support of international NGOs to maintain the integrity of the national park and its borders.

This article was first published by mongabay.com

Stateless children of Borneo

A boy paddles using his shoes in an upturned aluminium washing-up bowl he is using as a boat offshore from Gaya Isand, Sabah, East-Malaysia. He is one of thousands of stateless people on Gaya island, mainly from the Bajau Laut community of sea-gypsies and immigrants from the Sulu area of The Philippines.

Thousands of undocumented immigrants live in Sabah, East Malaysia on Borneo Island. Some have lived there for many years and have families. Not eligible for official documentation they are stateless people. Lacking official recognition, children cannot attend state school and many end up with no education working in menial jobs. Others are exploited by traffickers. Many are Bajau sea-gypsies, others are immigrants from the Muslim Sulu area of Southern Philippines. Indonesian workers also come across the porous border from Kalimantan seeking work.

Many of the Bajau Laut sea gypsies have now settled in Sabah. Climate change, overfishing and poverty have caused them to give up their nomadic life on the sea in favour of the shanty towns of coastal Sabah. The presence of migrants has been tolerated because many are contributing work in the state. However in recent years a rise in Muslim terrorist activity at tourist resorts around the coast has made the government less tolerant towards the migrants and less inclined to provide residency papers. So these shanty communities remain in limbo, trapped in an insecure situation where they cannot progress.

This story follows children from the shanty villages of Gaya Island, offshore from capital Kota Kinabalu, as they fight, play and hustle for a living in the capital’s busy fish docks and markets.

The power of Participatory Video

An indigenous Yaqui man films the sunset over the Gulf of California during a workshop with Comcaac facilitators which highlighted over-fishing around protected Tiburon Island. Credit: Thor Morales/InsightShare.

The first lesson we are taught in the Participatory Video training by NGO InsightShare taking place last October in Oxford, UK, is that mistakes are great! This is reassuring to many attending the week-long seminar, as making and screening a video to an audience can be, even for an experienced film-maker, a daunting task. Perhaps this approach is to put people unfamiliar with sophisticated technical equipment at ease.

We learn that for people in distant developing countries, often with little or no access to electricity, there are real challenges to overcome to get to grips with the Participatory Video process. Yet despite the challenges, among those involved in a growing global network of practitioners, there is a shared experience that participatory video, or ‘PV’ in short, generates remarkable results.

InsightShare is a key organisation at the forefront of pioneering and developing this methodology. PV first evolved in Canada in the late 1960s. Don Snowden was an early pioneer who developed the PV methodology at a small fishing community on Fogo Island in Newfoundland. InsightShare has been actively building the skills of communities worldwide since it began in the late nineties. Since then it has accrued a deep body of knowledge used to refine the effectiveness of its teaching.

The workshop curriculum is developed by drawing on years of accumulated hands-on experience in the field. Workshops are practically orientated with participants encouraged to learn by doing. At the end of the process the participants can showcase a tangible outcome of their efforts – their own video.

Although a simple concept at its core, implementing the PV process in the field can be fraught with difficulties. This is especially so as many of the communities with which InsightShare works are poor, often exploited and at the margins of society. Many have difficult issues to confront which can sometimes include tensions within the community itself or conflicts with powerful external actors such as corporations or governments.

Simply put, PV is a way of teaching people to make their own videos using video cameras and editing equipment. Used to support communities in developing countries, it has been gaining credence for some years as a way of providing them with a vehicle to identify and amplify their collective voice.

Many of those who have experienced the workshop-led process say they have found the experience empowering because it provides a way in which they can express themselves, their culture and opinions, without interference from outsiders who often promote their own agendas.

“They are open to it. So it’s another way of building community… that for them is really new, as a way of addressing their issues, their problems, their situations, or just showing what is beautiful within their territory. So I think they realise that this approach is different.” explained Thor Edmundo Morales. He has been an Associate with InsightShare since 2015, facilitating trainings in his native Mexico and more recently Liberia and Kenya in Africa.

The practical dimension of PV is to provide communities with the skills and equipment to produce their own videos about the lives of their community, their neighbours, relatives and each other. Then the process enables them to use these videos in ways that they find useful – however they decide that might be.

A typical film screening premiere will first entail showing the films to the community itself, so that everyone involved can identify with the results and share in the collective experience. Often this leads to discussion and self-reflection which can deepen understanding of important issues within the community.

“I think communities see themselves within the mirror which is the screen. Seeing themselves in the video, they start spotting new problems, issues, concerns or things they like, that they haven’t seen before.” explained Thor.

Many of InsightShare’s projects are with Indigenous People, often living in remote regions, and frequently with little access to services that we take for granted such as electricity. So it is something of a paradox that the PV methodology is quite heavily laden with high-tech equipment requiring an electricity power supply.

This issue throws up a bundle of technical and teaching issues which the PV methodology needs to overcome and address in order to be successfully adopted. People living in marginal circumstances are often dependent on subsistence livelihoods, making the most of the local environment to provide through forest foraging, agriculture, fishing or animal husbandry. Often participants will not have come into contact with modern equipment such as video cameras and computers in their day to day lives, and these will be unfamiliar to them.

The introductory process involves a series of exercises to help participants get acquainted with the concepts and equipment. Thor explained how he found workshop participants in Africa initially fearful of the technology, but this soon changed: “When they first saw the computer they were really afraid to use it and then after about two hours they were like, oh this is so easy,” he said.

“In Mexico many people we work with, particularly amongst the Yaqui, they had never touched a camera or computer before.” explained Thor. The Yaqui indigenous people live in the Sonora desert region in Northern Mexico. They have faced violence and intimidation as companies construct a gas pipeline across their territory, infringing their rights and threatening the fragile environment.

Anabela Jeka Carlon Flores, an indigenous Yaqui lawyer, is fighting the pipeline with her community of Loma De Bacun. In April 2016, Anabela’s community won a legal ruling requiring suspension of pipeline construction across Yaqui territory. However, the companies behind the pipeline: SEMPRA and INOVA, have ignored the court ruling and continued building.

Undeterred Anabela continued campaigning for justice, but in December 2016 she was kidnapped along with her husband and once released fled fearing for her life.

Anabela attended an InsightShare workshop with other members of her community in 2015 and soon came to appreciate the benefits: “The main benefits are that people are really thinking about their land, their culture, they are questioning. Before you cannot really see that they question big projects.” said Anabela, at a safe location some distance away from her home community, shortly after her kidnap ordeal. Soon she plans to overcome the threats she has received and return home.

Different communities around the world find PV useful for different reasons explains Thor: “The Yaqui use the cameras to record interviews, to show as proof to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, for the struggle they were having. They gathered a lot of interviews and sent them as evidence to sustain their case,” he said.

While InsightShare refrains from getting directly involved in community struggles, it does equip communities with the tools and skills to be able to put forward their perspectives and opinions, sometimes to policy-makers or companies that are disrupting their lives. This is in keeping with the now widely established view that effective development must recognise power relationships and equip people with the skills to be able to participate in the discussions and decision-making processes that effect them.

The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa are nomadic pastoralists who regularly move with their herds of goats and cattle. After independence it was agreed that the Maasai would move from their lands to allow the creation of the Serengeti game reserve.  They were given new lands in the Ngorongoro region, which is now hotly contested by different stakeholder’s including the government, conservationists, investors, the tourism industry and the Maasai people themselves.

The Maasai say that in recent years their community rights to use the land have been increasingly eroded and ignored. Along with big game animals The Maasai became a familiar part of the safari tour, regularly appearing in safari promotional literature and media coverage.

“The image and the name of the Maasai is used to sell everything from the safari tour to I don’t know – hand soap. Just everything. It is a very heavily exploited image. One that is not in the control of the Maasai people themselves.” said InsightShare facilitator Gareth Benest, who has held PV workshops with the Maasai.

“Everyone was distressed and emotional.  We discussed how the Maasai brand is worth an estimate US$10 million annually but the community gains no benefit.  This was one of the most difficult sessions I have ever had with the group.” said Gareth.

It is not only ongoing voyeurism of the Maasai and exploitation of their image.  Since colonial times a romanticized view of their lives has been constructed by outsiders projecting their own view of the Maasai upon them, which may be completely inaccurate. It may also gloss over pressing issues.

Gareth explained how at their first workshop the Maasai participants were excited to be able to tell their own story: “They said that we’ve had journalists come and go. We’ve had film crews, we’ve had photographers come and go, and we’ve seen how other people tell our story, and now it’s time for us to tell our own story.”

“PV is a particularly interesting and exciting tool in enabling a community that has never benefited from being able to represent themselves in the world, to start to take control of their own image, albeit in a small way to begin with.” Gareth explained.

Sometimes the burning issues for a community have less to do with pressures from outside and more to do with contested issues within the community itself such as changing attitudes towards cultural traditions. Alternatively, it is common for powerful actors seeking to exploit communities, to use divide and rule tactics (such as bribes, intimidation and offers of work), to create conflict within communities, so weakening their opposition.

“I was given an award, a distinguished human right defender” said Samwel Nangiria of NGO-Net in April 2017. He was awarded the Rural Human Rights Defender of the Year by NGO the Tanzania Human Rights Coalition. “Human rights have no borders and its protection calls for global community. It was really emotional. The Olosho video was screened to show the voices of the people… I mean I had to shed tears of hope and happiness. There will be a big community reception party in Loliondo… It’s a victory for the entire community.” said Samwel.

Samwel is from Loliondo in the Tanzanian state of Arusha and has been involved in PV since the first workshop was held in 2015. He said that PV has improved, “Unity among communities, and in particular the clans within Loliondo.” He said, “the video has restored trust” and bridged the breakdown in communication between segments of the community and clans, “that was rampant before.” Samwel explained.

“Three of them have had over a year of arrests, of beatings, Samwel was tortured.” Gareth said, explaining that the impact of the video has caused the government to review its approach. “Previously the government thought, well all we have to do is silence the troublemakers, get rid of these individuals and we’ll be able to implement our own plans for the land. When the video came out there was a realisation that even if they do silence those people, they can’t stop the community’s voice from being heard. The government changed its whole approach because of this. It no longer saw force as an option.” Gareth explained.

Samwel relayed how his community found the PV process provided a way to amplify their  concerns and ensured that they were heard, even in political decision-making circles: “The Olosho video was taken by many politicians at the last general elections (in 2015) as a starting point for our community based land rights campaign.”

“Recently, the video was re-screened before the government mission that was in the district trying to strike a balance between wildlife and people in the Loliondo Areas. The mission was seeking for the community position with regards to wildlife conservation and investment in the village lands.” said Samwel.

A finished video product is usually, though not always, a significant outcome of the PV process. However, Gareth is keen to stress that their model of PV is not driven by video outputs. Sometimes there are situations in which members of the group consider that releasing their film could attract adverse attention, exacerbate community divisions or provoke repression from external forces.

The most important result of the experience is not necessarily the final video, but more the learning and experiences shared by community members as they go through the production process.

Assessing the precise impact of the PV process is arguably impossible as it is not just about counting the number of finished videos produced. However the growing body of monitoring and evaluation learning that InsightShare has gathered, demonstrates the effectiveness of the methodology, and this has proved attractive to donors, ever keen to show that their money has real and tangible outcomes.

Once the workshop is finished and it is time for InsightShare’s facilitators to move on, the question arises as to what happens in future. InsightShare is always keen to leave behind the hardware (camera, sound equipment and laptop) to enable communities to continue making videos in their own time and for their own needs.

Samwel explained that PV has had a “high multiplying effect.” and he is working to train others in the community to pass on the skills: “We would like to advance the capacity-building of the group (‘Oltoilo-le-Maa’, meaning ‘Voice of the Maasai’) to establish a simple and functioning community media hub.” he said.

“The videos we created in Mexico, I took them to Kenya and Liberia and we showed them.” Said Thor, explaining the benefits of sharing and reflecting on PV work, no matter where in the world it has been produced. Thor explains the wider strategy being pursued for networking groups together: “InsightShare is trying to make a network where people trained by InsightShare actually meet each other…Put people together so they can interact.” he said. This network of regional hubs is now taking shape to share experiences of PV worldwide.

As the workshop wraps up in Oxford the group forms a circle and reflects on the six day training. Everyone shares how the intensive learning experience has both touched and challenged them in different ways. On one thing everyone agrees – the PV process involves much more than simply making a video.

Learn more about PV on the InsightShare website.

By Rod Harbinson

Is a property boom in Malaysia causing a fisheries bust?

    • Driven by high demand for housing, developers in Malaysia’s Penang Island are artificially expanding the coastline and planning to construct new islands.
    • Local fishers say building works have already damaged their livelihoods, and fear further construction will destroy their fishing grounds.
    • Mangroves and endangered bird species are also threatened, and the mining and transport of construction materials could spread adverse environmental impacts beyond just Penang.

PENANG, Malaysia — Fisherman Liew Hock Choon, 50, cut the outboard engine and explained that we have arrived at the position of one of his fish traps. “No GPS,” he said.

Using a method called triangulation, his keen eyes pinpointed natural markers on the shoreline and used these bearings to locate his traps with incredible accuracy. With an anchor thrown down, he snagged his trap and hauled it up. The deck was soon awash with flapping fish. These are grouper — prized in the restaurants of Penang and beyond, they fetch a premium price and can only be caught with hooks or traps, Liew explained. He said customers travel from as far as Hong Kong to buy these prized delicacies.

“Look at this mud in the traps,” Liew complained as just two of his four traps contained a catch worth keeping. Still, it was a good day under the circumstances. One phone call later and the 11 kilograms (24 pounds) of grouper were snapped up by a restaurant owner eager to purchase them for over 500 ringgit ($113). They were still alive when Liew delivered and weighed them while hungry customers looked on.

“I know this area very well because in my school days I followed one of the fishermen,” said Liew, from Tanjung Bungah a village North of Penang Island’s capital Georgetown. Now the days of his fishing grounds are numbered because of a land reclamation project by a local property developer.

“This area is very rich with mud crab, shrimp, snapper, and grouper, but soon it will all be gone,” said Liew.


Published on Mongabay.com

Cambodia’s Sambor dam plans threaten Mekong River

KRATIE PROVINCE, Cambodia — “If the dam is built, it will be like before, in the time of the Khmer Rouge when we all had to move,” said Plau Saret, 44, of Domrae Village on the Mekong River island of Koh Tnaot, right next to the proposed Sambor Dam site. In 2011, she and her husband built a new house. Then, a few years ago, she saw Chinese surveyors digging in the river.

The Sambor Dam is one of Cambodia’s priority energy projects, according to the country’s “Master plan for the development of energy generation.” This plan was a well-kept secret until two pages from it appeared Feb. 17 in a snapshot posted on the Facebook page of Phay Siphan, a government spokesman.

The plan posted by Siphan states the Sambor Dam will be completed in three stages from 2025-2027, with a total power output of 1,800 megawatts. Attempts by Mongabay to get government comments on the plan were not answered and few details are yet known about the proposed scheme.

First published on Mongabay.com